


here i am (in hell)

by mayfriend



Series: The Road Not Travelled [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Death, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e16 Fever, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend
Summary: InFever, Martha wakes up long enough to tell Jonathan about the ship healing her and enabling her to get pregnant, which then gives Jonathan the idea to use the ship to heal both her and Clark later in the episode.This is the world in which she doesn't wake up.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Jonathan Kent, Clark Kent & Lex Luthor, Jonathan "Pa" Kent & Lex Luthor, Jonathan "Pa" Kent/Martha Kent
Series: The Road Not Travelled [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626427
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28





	here i am (in hell)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Smallville fic after reading several hundred over the last month or so; I've just got to season 3 on my watch through, but I've been thoroughly spoiled by fic and tumblr, so I know where it's going and I'm hype as hell. As I've been watching, I've been making notes for possible points of divergence by episode; this is the first one I properly fleshed out into a story, but I plan to do many more in the future, of varying lengths.

> Who made the world I cannot tell;
> 
> 'Tis made, and here I am in hell.

A.E. Housman, _More Poems_

* * *

_This is a nightmare,_ Jonathan remembers thinking with incredible clarity as the heart monitor whines tonelessly. _This is all just a nightmare, and I need to wake up._

He pinches the back of his hand with numb fingers, then the thin skin of his wrist, the flesh of his forearm. He does not wake. Somebody is trying to pull him away- hands on his shoulders, pulling at his coat; when Clark was little he used to hang onto the hem of Jonathan’s jacket with his tiny hands until Jonathan gave in and held him in his arms. And Martha used to laugh at him and say _he’s got you wrapped around his little finger_ with a smile in her voice, and Jonathan would shrug, because it was true. Still is. Still is. 

“Mr Kent, Mr Kent, please-”

“Why aren’t they helping her?” He says, but his voice won’t work right, the words coming out high and low and broken. Inside the room, the nurses and doctors have stepped away from the still body of his wife, have taken the mask off her face, are putting away the paddles, unhooking the IV. “Why aren’t they-”

“Mr Kent, I’m very sorry.”

The world loses colour. 

_Martha,_ some little voice is moaning in the back of his mind, almost like a child. _Martha, my Martha._

“No,” somebody says, quietly, so very quietly. “No, no, no, no-”

If this is a nightmare, he wants to wake up. He needs to wake up. He needs to wake up right now, because his chest feels like somebody’s taken a sledgehammer to it, something is shattering, he is shattering, and his heart, his _heart-_

“Martha,” he gasps, like a prayer. 

His angel doesn’t move, and he knows this isn’t a nightmare at all. This is hell.

* * *

The house is quiet, when he finally makes it home. He wonders, for a split second, if Clark’s at the Talon- but then, he sees the lump of blankets and flannel on the couch, and remembers. 

Hell. Hell it is. 

He’s hot to the touch, but Clark has always run warm; as a child, he kicked off his bed covers in winter and ran around in his underwear in summer. When he’d climb into their bed in the mornings, Martha would coo and hold him close and call him _my favourite hot water bottle._ She’d called Clark a lot of things, over the years, all sweet endearments and loving pet names. _My baby, my love, my miracle._

“My baby,” Jonathan echoes her, voice no louder than a whisper. “My love. My miracle.”

How is he going to tell him? Dear god, how is he going to tell him?

How is he going to save him?

The doctors had no idea how to save Martha, or how to help her, and she at least had a physiology they could understand. If he took Clark to the hospital, what could they do but watch him die in that same white room? Would they even wait for him to die before the experiments began? Would they - the _they_ that kept him up at night, that stole his sleep and made Martha pace and pace until she wore the carpet down - even care that he was their good boy, their sweet son, their precious baby? 

Clark has never been to the doctor’s in his life, and before now, he never had reason to. Even before he had skin like steel, he never really got sick - a little graze here and there, healed in a day or less, or perhaps a small bruise that faded in the night. Jonathan has never known him to be so still. Jonathan has never been so scared.

The worst part is how he looks so _peaceful_ in his sleep. 

Martha had used to sing him to sleep, songs Jonathan never knew. He used to be up all hours of the night, and up first thing in the morning, waiting at the breakfast table with his shoes on the wrong feet, excited to start the day. He used to beg for stories, when he learned the words to beg with; before, he’d ask with his eyes, like a puppy dog that only a monster would kick. 

Jonathan’s been ready to die for Martha for over twenty years. He knew he’d kill for Clark the first time he laid eyes on him. 

It’s cruel that he hasn’t been given the chance to do either. 

“Don’t take him from me,” Jonathan asks the silence, the wind against the windows, the hollow where his heart once was. “Please, please, don’t take him from me.”

Clark breathes, and breathes, and breathes, and Jonathan cries.

* * *

Dr Bryce is back again. He doesn’t open the door, but she just raises her voice and forces the words through the wood. 

“Mr Kent, he needs to go to the hospital,” she says, and he shakes his head. 

“No,” he tells her. “No.”

“He’ll _die,”_ she says, like he doesn’t know that, like he doesn’t know what will happen now, like he isn’t clinging onto what is left of his life, what is left of his family, with his fingertips. 

“She went to the hospital, and she died,” he counters, tired, but he can’t sleep. He can’t sleep, because if he sleeps he loses these few precious hours he has left, like trying to catch sand with a sieve.

“You can’t _help_ him here-”

“I can protect him,” Jonathan snaps, voice breaking. “Fathers should protect their sons.”

She goes away after that. 

* * *

He half expects the police to come knocking on his door. He gets Lex Luthor instead. 

“Mr Kent, open the door or I’ll break it down,” that hated voice says, and Jonathan is too exhausted to summon up the usual anger that courses through him at the sound of it. He knew who had come as soon as he heard the purr of the expensive engine coming up the drive. 

Jonathan doesn’t stir for a long moment, his limbs like lead, before he stands, reluctant to move from Clark’s side. He undoes the chain with shaking fingers, and twists the handle - Lex has pushed the door the rest of the way open before he can, storming into the house in a rumpled suit.

“What in God’s name is wrong with you-” he begins, before his eyes fall on Clark’s prone form, limp on the couch. “Jesus Christ,” he swears, running a trembling hand over his scalp, “Jesus _Christ._ Mr Kent, he needs to go to the hospital, _right now-”_

“Dr Bryce tell you?” Jonathan asks, too rung out to even raise his voice, or inject the accusation with any real weight. 

“No, though she should have,” Lex spits, “I had to find out from the DCA that Clark was in the storm cellar where his mother was exposed to the toxin, and from the high school that he hadn’t gone to class- you’re _killing_ him, he needs medical attention right now-”

“They couldn’t save his mother,” Jonathan says, tired.

“And so you’re just going to let him _die?!”_ Lex roars, as unhinged as Jonathan has ever seen him. He starts towards the sofa, and tries to lift Clark off it, but fails to do more than shift Clark’s shoulders up a little. Jonathan realises that if he’d had any muscle with him, he’d have called them in by now. The threat about kicking down the door was just that, a threat, impossible to carry out by a slender young man like Lex. 

“You’re just gonna hurt yourself,” Jonathan says, quietly, somewhat humbled by Lex Luthor coming apart at the seams in his living room. 

“Oh, like you care,” Lex snaps, before baring his teeth. “You’re his father, dammit, don’t you want to save him? You’re meant to _love_ him-” 

Lex’s voice breaks. 

“I do,” Jonathan tells him, “more than you can ever know. I’m doing this for him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Lex all but roars, “if you were really doing it for him, you’d take him to the hospital, even if he doesn’t like doctors, even if she died there, because any chance of saving him is worth the risk-”

“There’s _no_ chance of saving him!” Jonathan yells, and he realises that he’s crying only when something hot and wet rolls down his cheek. “You don’t understand, no one understands, the only thing waiting for him there is pain!”

“Pain is better than death!” Lex shouts, red in the face, his eyes shining. “Life is pain, dammit!”

Jonathan shakes his head, stumbles back over to Clark’s side, looks down into that sweet face, relaxed and unlined. If he can’t save him- and he can’t, he _can’t_ , he’s just a man - then he’ll damn well defend him. “If you’re going to stay, then stay,” he says, the closest thing to a peace offering he can give, “if you’re going to go, then go. But I’m within my rights to deny medical care, and it’ll take hours he doesn’t have to challenge that in court. And he’d-” Jonathan almost chokes on the words, running out of breath, running out of strength, “he’d want you here.”

Furious, Lex paces, almost reaching the door multiple times. He snaps open his phone, fires off instructions to bribe whatever officials need bribing, file whatever motions need filing, to remove Jonathan Kent as Clark Kent’s medical proxy. Jonathan can’t even hate him for it, because he understands why he thinks he has to. And then, Lex wavers once more, before falling to his knees next to Clark’s head, scuffing him expensive slacks, and glares at him with all he’s worth. 

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” he hisses, fury in a three piece suit. “And if he dies-” Lex says the words like they’re a curse. “If he dies, I won’t rest until the whole state knows it’s because of you.”

Jonathan doesn’t reply, just takes Clark’s hot, hot hand in his, and goes back to his vigil. 

* * *

“Please,” Lex says, after an hour or so of this. “Please, Mr Kent, _please.”_

Jonathan looks at him, this boy that he’d convinced himself for so long was a man, a shark, just like his father. Lionel Luthor wouldn’t cry for anyone, certainly not a farm boy who could give him nothing but friendship. 

“I can’t,” he rasps. “I know you don’t understand why, but I can’t.”

“No, you _won’t,_ ” Lex says through gritted teeth, “There’s a difference.”

“Not always,” Jonathan says, before turning back to his son. If Lex says anything else to him, he doesn’t hear it.

* * *

Lex is on the phone when it happens, yelling at some poor underling giving him bad news. Jonathan has hand on Clark’s wrist, the other on his burning cheek. The pulse has been growing weaker for some time. He does not want to think about what that means. 

Beneath his hand, something flickers. It doesn’t throb, doesn’t stir, just- skips. Once. Twice. And then-

And then-

“Clark,” Jonathan barely manages to say, all the air gone from his lungs, all the weakness and sorrow of the last two days washing over him like a tidal wave. 

Lex stops talking, and something - the phone, Jonathan will identify later - hits the ground with a dull thump. 

“What? What happened?” Lex snaps, surging forward, and Jonathan allows himself to be pushed away from Clark’s side. He is shaking and too light and he barely catches himself before he hits the floor. “Oh, God-”

Flesh hits flesh. Over and over. “Come on,” Lex yells at Clark, at Jonathan, at the world. “Come on, come on, come on-”

“Son,” Jonathan croaks. “Son, he’s gone.”

Lex doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even seem to hear him, entirely engrossed in his task, pushing against Clark’s still chest fruitlessly. “Lex,” Jonathan manages, and Lex pulls away with a cry of rage, and looks like he’s about to spring at Jonathan, like he’s going to kill him (and there’s a part of Jonathan, a part of him that has been growing louder and louder ever since that nurse told him they were _sorry_ at the hospital, that wants him to) before he slumps to the floor, like a puppet with cut strings, sobbing wordlessly like a child. 

Jonathan clutches at his chest, and wonders if one can die of a broken heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_mayfriend_) and on [tumblr](http://mayfriend.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
